


this world that i've found

by ShowMeAHero



Series: as the ghost begins to bleed [7]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adopted Children, Adoption, Babies, Big Dick Richie Tozier, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jewish Richie Tozier, Kid Fic, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Smut, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 20:33:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21277295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Since finding about his Deadlights-induced magical— abilities? Skills? Actions? Richie’s still not sure what, exactly, to call it, and Eddie doesn’t really like when he calls it “witchcraft,” and appreciates it evenlesswhen he calls it “bitchcraft,” so he’s running out of ideas.Regardless. Since finding out he’s a necromancer or an enchantress or whatever, Richie’s been visiting the library alotmore often. Also, any bookstore he passed by. Or found on Google. Literallyanyplace he can find weird books, he’sthere.Eddie indulges him.





	this world that i've found

**Author's Note:**

> If only I could put as much effort as I put into this series into my general health and well-being!
> 
> Title taken from ["Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wxyN3z9PL4) by Starship.

Since finding about his Deadlights-induced magical— abilities? Skills? Actions? Richie’s still not sure what, exactly, to call it, and Eddie doesn’t really like when he calls it “witchcraft,” and appreciates it even  _ less  _ when he calls it “bitchcraft,” so he’s running out of ideas.

Regardless. Since finding out he’s a necromancer or an enchantress or whatever, Richie’s been visiting the library a  _ lot  _ more often. Also, any bookstore he passed by. Or found on Google. Literally  _ any  _ place he can find weird books, he’s  _ there. _

Eddie indulges him. He seems to just be happy that Richie’s not minutes away from shedding his skin and dying at any point, so Richie counts it as a win. It’s especially nice on sunny November afternoons like this one, when Richie was able to convince Eddie to come get lunch with him,  _ then  _ go for a walk with him.

“What’s that place?” Eddie asks, as Richie drapes his arm across Eddie’s shoulders and yawns just as someone’s trying to take a picture of him on their phone.  _ “Richie.” _

“Mm?” Richie asks, glancing in the direction Eddie’s pointing. He squints at the white text on the mint-green sign through his prescription sunglasses, then exclaims, “Oh, bookstore! Good eagle eyes, Kaspbrak, keep up the good work and you’ll get a gold star when we get home.”

“Shut the fuck up, fuckwad,” Eddie says as he takes Richie’s sunglasses off his face and trades him for his regular glasses. Something about the stupidly endearing action mixed with Eddie spitting vitriol at him makes Richie weirdly horny, and he almost shoves the feeling down before he remembers he’s married to this freak. Instead of pushing the feeling away, he leans into it, catching Eddie by the hand and ducking his head down to kiss him. His other hand threads up into Eddie’s hair, just for a moment, before he brings both hands up to cup Eddie’s face as he pulls away.

“Love you,” he says, and Eddie glares up at him, red-faced and embarrassed.

“That girl is taking  _ pictures of us,”  _ Eddie hisses. Richie looks over his shoulder, then waves at the girl. She hesitates for a second, then waves back. “Do you  _ know her?” _

“No,” Richie says, still waving, grinning like a fool. “Just wanted to spook her a little bit.”

“It’s working,” Eddie comments. Richie can tell; the girl has stopped waving and instead turned to her friend and started whispering urgently. “C’mon, get in the bookstore before you get arrested for disturbing the peace.”

“I’m certainly disturbing enough,” Richie replies, but he lets Eddie shove him through the door of the bookshop. The sign outside had been nice and neat, almost pastel with how light the mint-green paint had been, but the inside of the bookstore looks like the aftermath of the tragedy in Alexandria. There’s books  _ everywhere;  _ most, if not all, of the books Richie can see are, at the very least, quite obviously used. At the very most, they’ve started to live independently from their owners. It’s so fucking  _ exciting  _ that Richie has to ball his hands up into fists and shove them in his jacket pockets to keep from grabbing the closest book to him.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mutters. “This place is disgusting, Rich, let’s go—”

“Whoa, I am not going  _ anywhere,”  _ Richie says. “I can meet you outside after, but, man, think of what might be  _ in  _ this place.”

“I  _ am,”  _ Eddie says, looking the interior of the bookstore over again with a critical eye, but he doesn’t move towards the door before, eventually, sighing. “Fine.  _ Fine.  _ But if one of us scratches ourselves on a rusty nail or gets bitten by a rat, I’m  _ going  _ to say ‘I told you so.’”

“You say it on a daily basis, I don’t know why you need special permission,” Richie says, and Eddie thumps him on the arm. “Plus, I’m about, like, ninety-nine percent sure rats can’t give people the plague anymore.”

“Richie, if  _ anyone  _ got the Black Plague in the 21st century, it’d be you,” Eddie tells him. He starts picking his way down one slim, crowded aisle, and Richie  _ loves  _ the finicky little bastard. He follows at his heels, his eyes scanning the shelves as fast as he can. He finally takes his hands out of his pockets and allows himself to touch, rifling through the books whenever Eddie stops to examine a shelf.

They move deeper and deeper in, and it takes a little while for Richie to realize they haven’t seen anyone else here since they came on. He’d worry that the place was closed, but the door had been unlocked and open, and the lights were on. The further they get into the shop, though, it gets darker, too, and the aisles are slimmer, and the bookcases seem to close over them like a canopy.

In the distance, lit by one weird wall sconce, Richie lays eyes on a pink sign that reads, simply,  _ Fertility. _

He considers it.

“Come with me,” Richie says, then starts shimmying his way through the tiny aisles like he’s living in a spin-off of  _ 127 Hours. _

“God, it’s like being married to Lassie,” Eddie tells him.

“Don’t be such a furry, Eds,” Richie says, as he gets to the section underneath the  _ Fertility  _ sign. He stops, then points up at it.

“I am  _ not  _ a furry,” Eddie says, looking up at the sign. He raises an eyebrow, then looks back down at Richie. “Got bad news for you about our bodies, Rich.”

“No, I mean—” Richie looks over the shelves, eyes scanning the titles, and says, “What if there’s a book that helps us… like. Ugh, I don’t know. Speed up the adoption process, or something? You know?”

“Like, a spell to steal a baby?” Eddie asks. “Like, a witch’s spell, Richie? You wanna be the witch from  _ Sleeping Beauty,  _ is that it? You wanna steal someone’s firstborn—”

“Shut your mouth,” Richie snaps playfully, “her name is  _ Maleficent _ and she’s hot now—”

“You can’t conjure a  _ baby,  _ Richie,” Eddie tells him. Richie’s found a section labeled  _ LGBTQ,  _ which he finds strangely woke for this creepy bookstore that he’s pretty sure won’t exist if he blinks, and he’s skimming the titles on the shelves.

“I brought  _ your  _ dumb ass back from the dead, so I can do whatever I want,” Richie says. He pulls out a book that says,  _ Having A Baby Without All The Right Parts,  _ but there’s two cis women on the cover, so he puts it back on the shelf. He taps his fingers along the spines.

“That does  _ not  _ give you carte blanche to just start creating life,” Eddie tells him.

“Women get to do it,” Richie says. He turns and looks over the top of his glasses at Eddie, but that just makes him into an amorphous, staticky blob, so he pushes his glasses back up his nose. “How come I can’t?”

Eddie opens his mouth, then closes it, brow furrowing.

“Plus, I’m not even just— I’m not  _ creating  _ life,” Richie says, pouncing on his advantage the second he sees it. “I’m— I don’t know. Speeding up the process a little bit.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything for another second before he exclaims, “Fine! Fine,  _ fine,  _ look for your weird book, but, Richie, for the love of  _ fuck,  _ be  _ careful,  _ you fucking dumbass—”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Richie cuts him off. He sees a book that just says  _ Starting Your Family Right!  _ on the side, so he pulls it out. The book has long since lost its dust jacket, leaving it naked in a soft, worn hardcover. He turns away from Eddie and blows the dust off of it before cracking it open. He can hear Eddie flipping through a different book beside him, so he starts looking for the table of contents. The little foreword starts with  _ So you’ve decided to adopt! Good for you!,  _ which he thinks is a good start.

The table of contents is just one innocuous, unhelpful chapter title after another, as it turns out.  _ Filling Out Your Applications, Preparing Their Bedroom,  _ et cetera, et cetera. He sighs and he’s about to just start aimlessly flipping through the book when he notices a chapter title right in the middle.

_ Speeding Things Along. _

He raises an eyebrow, then flips to page 108, where that chapter supposedly starts. He’s greeted with a pentagram above the chapter title and a diagram depicting someone cutting their arm open over an open flame.

“Interesting,” Richie says aloud. He turns and shows Eddie the outside of the book. “What would you think this book’s about?”

Eddie studies the blank cover, then reads the title on the spine. “Um. How to… prepare for a baby? I don’t know. Why?”

Richie turns the book around and shows Eddie the open page, and Eddie gags, looking away. Richie laughs. “I  _ told  _ you this place was freaky!”

“Richie, Jesus, put that  _ away,”  _ Eddie says. He looks back hesitantly, examining the page with terrified, curious eyes. Richie loves him so much. “What the fuck  _ is  _ that?”

“It’s a spell for speeding things along, apparently,” Richie tells him. He flips the book back around and reads the first page quickly. His heart starts to pound the further he reads, and he goes to the next page. He flips to the third page almost hungrily, then the next, before he looks up at Eddie and says, “This is it. Eds, this is  _ it.” _

“What do you mean?” Eddie asks weakly. “You can’t just— just pull a book off a shelf and have it be exactly what you want, Rich, what the  _ fuck.” _

“Eddie,” Richie says, slowly. “The book that taught me how to bring you back to life  _ literally  _ hit me over the head. This, if anything, took ten times more work to find.”

Eddie glares at him, then concedes, “Fair point. What do you mean, though?”

Richie turns the book around and points to the passages he was just reading. “It’s about pushing along the adoption process, Eds. It warps the administration.”

“That… seems risky, if it falls into the wrong hands,” Eddie says hesitantly. Richie snaps the book shut and holds it up high.

_ “We  _ are not the wrong hands, Eds,” Richie tells him. “We’re the exact  _ right  _ hands to hold onto this book.” He stands up on his toes to look over the tops of the shelves. “Now I just have to find someone who works here and see how much this is—”

_ “Take it,”  _ a rasping voice breezes past them. Goosebumps run down Richie’s arms, and Eddie looks like he’s about to pass out.

“Thank you,” Richie says, after a long moment of silence. It’s enough to shatter the suspense for Eddie, who grabs Richie by the sleeve and takes off at a run, jumping hurdles of books like an Olympic champ, or at least someone who had really great legs when he was on the high school track team, not that Richie had been looking.

Eddie doesn’t stop once they’re outside, keeps them running until they’re two blocks away, at which point he hits the sidewalk and puts his head between his legs. Richie doubles over next to him, one hand on his knee, the other hand holding the book in the air.

“We took the ghost book!” Richie exclaims breathlessly. Eddie smacks at his shins, wheezing.

* * *

The ritual isn’t even all that intricate, in the end. They’ve only just gotten their last certifications and had three different home visits during their home study process before they got cleared a few days earlier. Their attorney, Grace, who started as Richie’s attorney and quickly became so bewildered by trying to deal with him that she almost exclusively talks to Eddie now while Richie just listens and nods, has an appointment for them later in the afternoon with their adoption agency for a potential private adoption. Richie’s been thrumming with nervous energy all morning while Eddie’s been cleaning the house.

“Richie, just  _ do it,”  _ Eddie finally snaps, when Richie circles their kitchen table for the fifty-third time in a row. Richie stops, looking up at him, having been so lost in thought and the repetition of counting his steps that he forgot what he was doing.

“Do what?” he asks. He strides over to Eddie, backing him up against the counter, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “Do this? Is this what you want, you fussy little—”

“Rich,  _ no,”  _ Eddie half-laughs, pushing him away. “No, the— Rich,  _ focus,  _ the book, the ritual.  _ Speeding Things Along? _ Remember?”

Richie laughs right back.  _ Remember?  _ Of course he fucking remembers, it’s all he’s thought about in the last few weeks since they got the book. He goes over to the bookcase and runs his finger along the spine of  _ Starting Your Family Right!, _ letting the electric feeling run up his arm and down his own spine before he pulls the book out and flips open to his bookmark on  _ Speeding Things Along. _

“Are you sure?” Richie asks, eyes trained down on the book. He doesn’t see it when Eddie reaches out to him, but he feels it; Eddie wraps his fingers around his wrist, pulling the book down so they can look at each other.

“Richie, I’m gonna say this once, so listen up,” Eddie tells him, and Richie’s immediately putting his full attention on Eddie. Eddie makes a face that’s almost a smile, almost surprise, says, “Alright,  _ whoa,  _ turn it down, babe—”

“You  _ wanted  _ my full attention,” Richie reminds him.

“I’m not sure I was ready for it,” Eddie says, and Richie dips his head, runs his fingertips feather-light along Eddie’s jaw just because he can. Eddie’s eyes flutter shut, and Richie kisses the corner of his mouth softly. He pulls away, tapping the center of Eddie’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.

“You’ve  _ always  _ got my full attention, handsome,” Richie tells him. Eddie swallows, then looks over his shoulder at the clock on the mantle.

“How long does the ritual take?” Eddie asks. Richie leans away from him to consult the book without knocking the cover into Eddie’s nose.

“About forty minutes,” Richie says. Eddie plucks the book out of his hand, slides the bookmark back into place, and deposits it back on the shelf before he wraps his hand up in Richie’s shirt. Richie grins at him before Eddie’s yanking him down to his level so they’re eye-to-eye.

“You have thirty minutes to finish what you started,” Eddie tells him in a low voice. Richie drops to his knees.

“I don’t need thirty minutes,” he says, undoing the fastens on Eddie’s pants and tugging them down. Eddie backs up against the bookcase, and Richie follows him, shifting so he can press his teeth to the inside of Eddie’s thigh. Eddie shivers, so Richie chases the feeling with his tongue. Eddie’s skin is thrumming with warmth, and Richie can’t help but press his cheek against his thigh before he pulls his boxer briefs down, too.

“Jesus  _ Christ,  _ Richie,” Eddie breathes. Richie slides one hand up Eddie’s leg, feeling him warming up to a fevered temperature under his skin. He brings his fingers up to Eddie’s cock and strokes it, slowly, until he’s fully hard, and then beyond that, until Eddie’s twitching under his hands. “God, Rich,  _ c’mon—” _

“You’re impatient,” Richie says.

“You’re not in charge here,” Eddie tells him breathlessly. Richie laughs, then leans up to swallow Eddie’s dick down. He’s getting better and better at it, so he’s able to do it in three careful movements, and Eddie’s hand wraps up in Richie’s long hair the second his nose touches Eddie’s skin. “Oh, fuck—”

“Mm,” Richie hums, and Eddie slams his eyes shut, head falling back against the bookcase. Richie guides Eddie’s hands back up to his hair and then squeezes his wrists, and Eddie’s eyes snap open. He looks down at Richie, hands hovering over his head.

“Are you  _ sure?”  _ Eddie asks, and Richie gives him two enthusiastic thumbs-ups. Eddie huffs a laugh before he takes Richie’s head in his hands roughly and starts to fuck his mouth. Richie  _ loves  _ that shit,  _ loves it,  _ and he has to shove his own hand into his pants like a teenager and get his hand on his own cock before he dies. Eddie notices and lets go of his head to swat at his arm, breaking rhythm, laughing, “Richie,  _ no,  _ I’m so close, c’mon, just let me finish and I’ll get you,  _ focus—” _

Richie laughs, too, and Eddie shivers at the feeling, reminding them what they’re doing. Eddie strokes down Richie’s cheek, the line of the cheekbone down to his jaw, then along to his chin. He holds Richie’s face, and Richie reaches up and taps himself on the forehead.

“Are you  _ sure?”  _ Eddie asks. He asks  _ every time,  _ and Richie gets it,  _ he does,  _ because Eddie wants to make sure he’s not doing anything Richie doesn’t like, and he wants to keep everything as neat and clean as he can, and all that shit. Richie doesn’t give a hoot. Well, he  _ does  _ give a hoot — he’ll do anything Eddie wants, anytime, and would never do anything he didn’t — but not when it comes to Eddie thinking Richie’s not into hot shit like his husband coming on his face.

Richie gives another thumbs-up, and Eddie rubs his thumb over his cheekbone once, twice, then tangles his hands up in Richie’s hair again, holding his head in place. Richie braces himself against the bookshelf with one hand, the other one snaking up around Eddie’s thigh, nails biting into his skin. Eddie moans, his head falling forward, so Richie draws one long scratch down the back of his thigh. Eddie halfheartedly glares at him, and Richie’s delighted with his discovery, pinching Eddie’s thigh before his hand slips up to his actual goal of Eddie’s ass. The second he touches him, though, Eddie pulls out of his mouth and barely has enough time to say  _ “Richie—”  _ before he’s coming on his face. Richie slams his eyes shut behind his glasses —  _ Motherfucker,  _ he thinks,  _ my fucking glasses —  _ and waits until Eddie pushes him back down.

Richie sits on the floor properly, drawing one hand over his face and licking his palm. His eyes are still shut, so it’s a surprise when Eddie smacks him. He laughs while Eddie says, “God, you’re disgusting. Hold on.”

“Wait, Eds,” Richie says, but Eddie’s already wriggled away from him to grab a bunch of tissues off the box on their coffee table. He comes back to Richie and carefully wipes his face off, removing his glasses and setting them aside.

“Disgusting,” Eddie repeats. Richie opens the eye on the clean side of his face and grins.

“Thank fuck optometrists don’t have black lights,” Richie says, and Eddie thumps him between the eyes before finishing cleaning off his face. He gets up and neatly disposes of the tissues in the wastepaper basket. Richie falls back against the floor and spreads his arms wide. “Come  _ back,  _ Mary Poppins, I’m still hard and you told me you were gonna finish me off—”

“Do  _ not  _ call me Mary Poppins,” Eddie says heatedly, climbing over Richie and pulling his cock out of his underwear. “You’re  _ such  _ a dick.”

“Who are you talking to?” Richie asks. Eddie laughs before he can stop himself.

“You  _ fucker.”  _ He slips down Richie’s body until he’s laying between his legs, his elbow on Richie’s leg and his chin propped up in his hand as he looks him over. Richie can feel himself getting harder just from Eddie’s stupid fucking intense, dark eyes all over him, and Eddie smiles darkly at him. “You’re  _ perfect  _ for me, Richie—”

“Oh, fuck,” Richie gasps, as Eddie licks a long line up his dick. He does that again, then  _ again,  _ before he swallows Richie down in one fluid movement like he’s been sucking cock for his whole life. If Richie had medals for blowjobs, he’d give Eddie a thousand of them, and he—

He’s broken out of his chaotic, derailing train of thought by Eddie pulling off and kissing his thigh, his hip, his waist, right under his navel, back down to his dick. He makes a shivery whimpering sound, and Eddie bites into his thigh.

“Ah,” Richie manages. “Fuck, Eds.”

Eddie doesn’t respond with words, licking over the bite mark on Richie’s thigh before moving further up to the thin flesh higher up. He nips the front of his thigh before he kisses the inside, and Richie feels like he’s going to go  _ insane. _

“You fucker,” he whispers, voice nearly breaking. He feels Eddie’s lips turn up into a smile against his skin before he bites down on the inside of his thigh, and Richie’s back arches off the floor for a moment as he inhales sharply. “Oh,  _ fuck,  _ Eddie—”

“Mm,” Eddie murmurs. “Be good, Rich. Stay down.”

“Okay, yeah, I can do that,” Richie says, and Eddie swallows him down again. Richie takes a deep breath, watches Eddie’s lips on his cock, whimpers. “Oh,  _ fuck—” _

Eddie introduces the  _ barest  _ hint of teeth, just the  _ lightest  _ scrape against his dick, and Richie’s coming down his throat before he can even fucking ask, which he’s definitely going to apologize for once he can see and hear again. Eddie’s mouth slides off of him as he’s trying to breathe, then kisses him on the cheek.

“Fuck,” Richie wheezes. “Sorry, Eds. In all fairness, though, can’t pull that on a guy.”

“Did you not like it? Shit, Rich, I’m sorry—”

“No, no, I liked it,” Richie says. He sits up to look at Eddie, and Eddie just drops his head in his lap. Richie frowns down, then puts his dick away, zipping his pants up. “Looks wrong like that,” he says, and Eddie snorts a laugh. “No, but I’m— serious. I liked it. I just meant— can’t pull that on a guy and not expect me to think it’s so hot I have to  _ instantly  _ orgasm about it.”

“Silly me,” Eddie says. “I’ve never been good at cause and effect.”

“Here’s the cause,” Richie says, lifting Eddie’s hand up to his mouth and kissing his palm. He turns his hand over, holds up the hand so they can both see Eddie’s new wedding ring. “And here’s the effect. Make sense now?”

“You always were my best tutor,” Eddie tells him, and Richie kisses him again. “Speaking of. The ritual—”

“Oh, shit,” Richie says, jumping to his feet, ignoring Eddie’s frustrated yelp at being displaced, to grab  _ Starting Your Family Right!.  _ He holds it up in the air. “Eddie, you’re my familiar, help me get my groceries.”

“I am  _ not  _ your familiar,” Eddie snaps.

“Why not?” Richie asks. “You’re already a furry—”

“I  _ told you,  _ I am  _ not  _ a furry—”

Richie’s sure that whoever wrote this book wasn’t intending for a married gay couple to bicker throughout the entirety of their ritual, but whoever wrote the book never met him, and more’s the pity for it. Everyone would be a lot better off with a little bit more laughter in their life, Richie thinks. He thinks that especially fiercely whenever he manages to make Eddie laugh.

The ritual itself, as was stated before, is not all that intricate. What’s difficult about it is the absolute depth and purity of feeling it requires, but Richie has that in  _ spades  _ when it comes to having a baby with Eddie, and he brings it up and out his hands and his mouth and his eyes while Eddie holds the stone bowl for him. The worst part of it ends up being that they both have to give their blood for it to work, so Richie has to let Eddie slice his own arm open and bleed into the bowl before he deftly bandages him up. It hurts, to watch him do it, but it’s easy to do it himself, skin parting over old scars, and he lets his own blood drip down his fingers into the bowl to mingle with Eddie’s blood, with his spell ingredients, with the hazy not-white, not-not-white energy of his magic.

Richie sticks his hand into the bowl while Eddie bandages his other arm and stirs it, then uses the mixture to paint the symbol at the end of the chapter onto his and Eddie’s chests. They both look down at it before Eddie tips his head back, gagging.

“This is disgusting,” he says.

“We should have a disgusting jar,” Richie replies. “Every time you say something’s disgusting, you put a dollar in the jar, and at the end of the week, we buy the state of Louisiana.”

“You’re such a fuckhead,” Eddie tells him. “Is this supposed to be burning?”

The answer is yes, it is, and it burns the symbols into both of their chests slowly. Richie reaches out and grabs Eddie’s hand in his, tangles their fingers together tightly and squeezes his hand through the pain, and Eddie squeezes him back. When it finishes, there’s nothing to wipe away; it’s seeped into their skin, under the burn marks. Richie examines Eddie’s first before slathering burn cream over it.

“That should mean it worked,” Richie tells him. “I mean, in theory.”

“Communism, in theory,” Eddie replies, then runs his hand over Richie’s cheek. “I love you. Thank you for doing this.”

“We don’t even know if it  _ actually  _ worked yet, Eds, keep it together,” Richie says. “I love you, too, though.”

“R—”

“You nerd.”

“You couldn’t just  _ fucking  _ leave it—”

* * *

They’re cleaned up, bandaged, redressed, and presentable by 1:45pm, and on the road by 2:00pm with Eddie behind the wheel because, road rage be damned, he’ll get them there in one piece. Richie sits in the passenger’s seat like he’s got a steel rod in his spine, bouncing his legs and failing to be still for longer than two total seconds at a time.

“What if they hate us?” Richie says. Eddie frowns at the road.

“They’re not going to hate us,” Eddie says. “We passed all their processes, we did all the home study stuff, we got the certifications— Richie, we did everything. There’s nothing more we  _ can  _ do.”

Richie nods, looking out the window. After a moment, he says, “I think that’s what’s frustrating me.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Yeah, Rich, me, too.”

Richie looks back to him, and Eddie glances in his direction in the same moment. He offers a smile, and Richie returns it, reaching out to give Eddie his hand. Eddie drives one-handed the rest of the way to the agency. Richie’s busy staring like a dumbass besotted teenager when they pull into the parking lot, so he doesn’t see  _ what  _ makes Eddie’s brow furrow like he’s confused, but he does see it in Eddie’s face that something’s up. Richie sits upright and looks out the windshield to see Grace and their adoption agent, Tom, sitting on a bench outside the doors. Grace waves as they pull up, and Tom jumps to his feet.

“Don’t be nervous,” Tom says as they get out of the car. Eddie shuts his door carefully.

“That’s a surefire way to keep us calm,” Richie tells him as cheerfully as he can when his heart’s pounding this hard. “What’s up? Something bad?”

“Not bad,” Tom says.

“Depending on your point of view,” Grace adds.

“I don’t think so,” Tom disagrees.

“Okay, what the— What,” Eddie starts over again, just barely catching himself from swearing in front of them, “is going on? What’s up?”

“Okay, so, bad news, the people you were going to meet with today  _ just  _ called and said they’ve changed their minds and they won’t be coming,” Tom says. Richie’s whole heart sinks, and he looks to Eddie over the top of the car. Eddie looks to him, his eyes already red.

“No, wait, he’s got more,” Grace says. “Jesus, Tom, you can’t just stop mid-sentence like that, look at them.”

Tom grins, then says, “This morning, we got an immediate placement request. A twenty-month-old girl and a three-month old girl. They’re half-siblings, sharing a mother. They were taken out of an abusive home and need placement with parents experienced with trauma.” Tom motions to them, and Richie feels like his heart is physically inside of his mouth. He looks to Eddie, who looks like he  _ really  _ might pass out this time. “What do you guys think? Talk it over, you can get in the car and talk it over—”

“Okay,” Richie says, climbing right back into the car. After a long moment, Eddie climbs back in with him and shuts the door softly behind himself, ensconcing them in silence. It takes a minute, but Richie finally says, “So… Yes, right?”

Eddie sighs, grinning. “Okay, good— Yeah, yes, I want to do that, I just wanted to make sure  _ you  _ did—”

“Eds, you looked like someone  _ shot  _ you, I thought you might actually divorce me—”

Eddie leans across the center console to kiss Richie harder than he has in a while. When he pulls back, he’s got tears on his face. Richie brushes them off with his sleeve.

“Are you  _ sure?”  _ Eddie asks. He has this happy, open expression that Richie’s only seen a few times, and it makes him want to keep Eddie this happy for the rest of his life, if he can. Eddie is everything to him, in this moment. He won’t be, once they walk into that building and fill out six thousand forms and meet the girls who are about to become  _ their  _ children, but, right now, he is everything, and Richie wants to savor that one last time. Eddie is  _ everything.  _ Eddie is—

Eddie is Richie’s lungs. He is just as close to his heart, and just as essential to staying alive.

“I have literally never been more sure of anything in my entire stupid life,” Richie says. “Not even marrying you, and I swear, I thought you were a divine message. This is  _ right,  _ Eddie.”

Eddie knows that means something, knows that when Richie feels it, that there’s something to that, something cosmic and otherworldly, something knowing, something beyond them. He smiles, and Richie smiles back.

“Love you,” he says.

“Love you,” Richie replies. “Gimme a baby, Kaspbrak, let’s go.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs.

“Oh,  _ fuck,  _ we’re leaving here with two children,” Richie tells him, and they both stop laughing. It feels strange, like it won’t be  _ real  _ until it’s happening, but, right now, Richie feels magnetic, electric, _ electrifying.  _ He grins, stupid. “C’mon.”

Eddie kisses the back of his hand before releasing him and getting out of the car. Richie runs to Grace and hugs her while Eddie says, “Yes, we’ll do it, we’d love to do it, what are their names?”

They’re given a full rundown as Tom and Grace escort them into the building. Riley is the twenty-month-old and Audrey is the three-month-old, and Richie thinks they sound hip and way cooler than he does. They’re also informed the girls don’t have middle names, but that Richie and Eddie should feel welcome to talk about it and decide if they’d like to give them middle names when they change their last names on their amended birth certificates. Thinking about changing their last names, thinking about having two children with the last name  _ Kaspbrak,  _ thinking about two Kaspbrak children looking at him and Eddie and calling them both  _ Dad,  _ it’s— it’s more than Richie’s ever even  _ thought  _ to want.

The girls are coming from an abusive home, they’d been told, but Tom explains it as they’re walking through the halls. The girls’ mother didn’t seem to care much either way about her children, and her current husband, Audrey’s father, was physically violent with both girls. A stranger in a mall had seen the bruises on Riley and anonymously called the police, who showed up and called Social Services, and here they all are today. Riley’s a bit behind developmentally, but has been showing resilience and is bouncing back wonderfully, they said. She has a bit of a hard time seeing, so they’ve had her fitted for toddler glasses that she just got that morning and apparently loves.

Richie’s nearly vibrating out of his skin by the time Tom gets up to go and see if the girls are ready. Grace reaches out and takes one each of their hands in hers.

“You deserve this,” she tells them. She looks Eddie in the eye, then Richie. “You’re going to be amazing parents, I know you are. Okay?”

“Okay,” Richie says. She looks to Eddie, and he nods jerkily.

“Thank you,” he says. She squeezes their hands and lets them go just as Tom knocks and sticks his head in.

“Wanna come with me?” he asks, and they do, so they go.

Eddie shoves Richie ahead of himself, so Richie goes in first, right after Tom introduces them both. Richie’s the one who sees them first, and he feels like he’s going to cry as soon as he does. He was right, in the car; Eddie’s not everything anymore, but not in the way he thought. It’s more like he’s the Grinch and his heart expanded so he could give his whole heart to three separate people, three times over.

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just staring at who Richie assumes is Riley, since she’s standing upright and wearing glasses. Richie folds himself down onto the floor, crossing his legs and leaning his cheek into his hand.

“Hey,” he says. Riley stares at him, then looks up at Tom. She’s got these big dark eyes behind her glasses that remind Richie forcefully of Eddie’s eyes, and all this curly dark hair and soft tanned skin with a long scar along one round cheek. Richie wants, with an intense stab of dark, hot rage, to murder the person who put it there, in a very real way. He shoves it down and grins happily at Riley. “You’re Riley, right? I’m Richie. Richie and Riley, that sounds pretty cool together.”

Riley eyeballs him, then smiles. “Night night?”

Richie raises an eyebrow, then glances up at Tom. “Night night?”

Tom shrugs. “She usually just says hi, I don’t know. You talk to her.”

Richie looks back down at her. “Night night? What’s that mean, short stack?”

She rolls her eyes and gets up, pointing at the television. “Night night,” she repeats, forcefully. Eddie laughs.

“She must’ve seen your show,” he says. “Late Night.”

“Oh, man, that’s too bad,” Richie says. “Starting off with a rough first impression, kid, I’m sorry. Allow me to reintroduce myself as a nice man and not a weirdo TV man.” He holds out his hand to her. “I’m Richie.”

She looks up at him, then walks right past his hand and up against his chest, climbing into his lap to hug him. Richie doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her and let her press her face into his shoulder, but he  _ does  _ start crying quietly as he does it. He lifts her up and stands, turning her to face Eddie.

“This is Eddie,” Richie says.

“Hi, Riley,” Eddie says. Richie feels such want, such a  _ need  _ for this to go well, for this to be his life. He knows it’s right. He can  _ feel  _ it. It’s deep inside of him, rooted in who he is as a person. His chest starts to burn, and he winces. He looks to Eddie’s face, looks at the furrow of his forehead as he glances up at Richie with those big nervous eyes of his. After a moment, he smiles.

_ “Starting Your Family Right,”  _ Richie says, which is nonsense to everyone else, but Eddie smiles right back at him as Richie’s ritual actually kicks in and starts to work. Riley frowns down at herself, but doesn’t say anything before she turns her face up to look at Eddie again.

“Baby,” she says.

“She’s right here, Riley,” Tom says. He motions to the bassinette against the wall, and Richie looks to Eddie before tipping his head in Tom’s direction.

“You go,” he tells him, and Eddie looks nervous for a second before he visibly steels himself and goes to pick Audrey up. Richie can’t see her at first, but Eddie’s looking down at her in his hands like he’s about to start crying again.

“Hi,” Eddie says to her. He remembers himself after a moment and walks so,  _ so  _ carefully back to Richie with her, settling her gingerly against his chest and tipping her up so Richie can see her. She resembles her sister, a little; same curly hair, but it’s a lighter brown. Her eyes are hazel-blue, but their noses are the same. She’s got a lighter skin tone than her sister, but still darker than either Richie or Eddie, and she’s got freckles spattered across her face. A birthmark is peeking up above the neckline of her onesie, Richie can see, and he loves her just as much as he loves Riley, just as much as he loves Eddie. He’s crying again, he knows, but Eddie just leans into him.

“Hey, Audrey,” Richie finally manages. “Good to meet you. Sorry your first image of me is a blubbering mess.”

“Get used to it,” Eddie whispers, and Richie laughs, kissing him on the temple.

“Yeah, get used to it,” Richie echoes. He shuts his eyes for a moment, then kisses the top of Eddie’s head before he turns back to Riley and hugs her again.

Richie could fill out a thousand more forms, a million, it doesn’t matter, he’d do anything if he got to take these kids home. He  _ needs  _ to, he can feel it; it’s a sensation he’s felt before, bringing back Stan, bringing back Eddie, that feeling like he’s been electrocuted, like he’s made of lightning. He knows what he  _ needs  _ to do, he just needs to  _ do it,  _ and he needs to bring his family  _ home. _

It takes hours, but the last thing they do is fill out their amended birth certificates. Riley’s consulted on her middle name, but can’t make up her mind, and so she gets Riley Frances Kaspbrak. Audrey can’t speak nor understand English, and so Riley is consulted on her behalf, and still can’t make up her mind, and so Audrey is officially named Audrey Beverly Kaspbrak. Richie cries when he writes their names, and Eddie pretends he’s not crying when he reads them, but Richie  _ knows  _ he is. He pulls him in, lets Eddie hide his face in his shirt while he calms down.

The sun’s mostly set by the time they get their carseats (gifts from Grace, picked up on her way there, and Richie thanks her with a hug and another round of tears) securely strapped in the backseat of their car. Eddie goes over the straps three times, then the buckles four times each once the girls are actually  _ in  _ their seats, and Richie looks on fondly from the passenger seat.

“I’ll come visit in a couple of days,” Tom says, leaning in the window as Eddie finally climbs in the driver’s seat and buckles himself in. “Grace’ll be there, too. We’ll call ahead and set up a time. Until then, settle in, read over the information we gave you, get to know the girls.” He leans in and waves at them. “Bye!”

“Bye!” Riley calls back, waving happily. Richie fucking  _ loves  _ her. He loves them both so much, it aches inside his chest.

“See you two in a couple days,” he says, before rolling up his window. Eddie pulls out of the parking spot so slowly Richie briefly wonders if it’s a joke, but then he creeps similarly through the lot. “I’ll allow it for now, but you have to hit five on the highway, Kaspbrak.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says. He glances in his rearview mirror, and Richie twists around to look at the girls.

“Do you think he’s gonna go slow the whole way home?” Richie asks. Riley laughs and shrugs. “Yeah, me neither. What do you think, should he go fast?”

“Yes!” Riley exclaims.

“The council has spoken,” Richie proclaims sagely. Eddie reaches out and pinches his wrist, and Richie laughs.

“Home!” Riley calls. “Fast!  _ Yes!” _

“Love her,” Richie says. “Love this.” He turns back to her and points at her. “Love you. Love you  _ so much,  _ short stack, it’s bananas.”

Riley smiles back at him, but doesn’t say anything. Richie leans over Audrey’s seat.

“Love you, too, tiny,” Richie tells her, and Audrey doesn’t even so much as blink at him. He looks to Eddie. “And  _ you,  _ tiny.”

“Shut  _ up,” _ Eddie says again. Richie adores them all with everything he’s got. Finally, that giant misshapen ball of energy in his chest warms and spreads out, melting through his veins and dripping down into every centimeter of his limbs. He settles, and feels at home.

**Author's Note:**

> You can talk to me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
